More than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions by midday Monday, according to two people at the paper with knowledge of internal matters. Not all cancellations take effect immediately. Still, the figure represents about 8% of the paper’s paid circulation of 2.5 million subscribers, which includes print as well. The number of cancellations continued to grow Monday afternoon.
I am confused by people’s shopping habits. How often are you buying online and what is it?
Groceries and pharmacy are all local. Clothes are a local boutique (I don’t buy clothes more than one or twice a year and I like to try things on and buy quality items). Shoes are from a local redwing store that I’ve been wearing for over 8 years. Computer parts I do tend to buy online, but I’d never risk buying from Amazon. I typically buy from b&h, cdw, or directly from the manufacturer.
Vape supplies are 5x the price on the street compared to Amazon, I buy from some shady online retailer instead but it also takes much longer.
For pharmacy stuff things I need are impossible to get in any pharmacy, even as I have it on prescription and should be able to get it for free in the UK, in practice it’s just never in stock, online pharmacies require bizarre kafka-esque labyrintha of consultations ans approvals, and one that I was recommended by my gf that she uses tried to selectively scam me by asking for.my card details over the phone, including CVC for the excuse that it was some third party supplier, meanwhile on Amazon it can be delivered the same day for a pretty decent price.
For computer parts in 99% of cases Amazon is much much cheaper. Any hobby stuff like music gear all comes from Amazon because it’s much more expensive with the manufacturer (if even available directly) nevermind retailers, nevermind in store IRL. Print books (can’t stand reading electronic copies) and especially manga are almost never available outside of Amazon, where again it’s all 1DD.
I’m in the top 20% earners in the UK so I can somewhat afford IKEA as long as I use it for many years, but for most there’s no real alternative to Amazon price-wise despite the poor quality. Same goes for kitchenware, options in stores are far too limited, e.g. plate drying racks were all too big or too small unless I got the one I got from Amazon.
Clothing varies, if I only ever go with brands I already know and take days off to actually be able to visit the stores before they all close at 5PM, maybe, but otherwise the best way to buy any brand of clothing is prime wardrobe’s try before you buy thing if you filter to legit brands only.
There’s just no real alternatives, even if you pay more, you wait more, you choose worse options, sooner or later you just run into a wall because those businesses that used to sell this stuff were gone by the 2010s tops.